Congress knows exactly what the H-1B visa does to American STEM workers. It is no accident that the H-1B was structured to allow that, in the words of the Department of Labor, "H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker." Former Senator Robert Bennett (R-Utah) remarked, "Once it's clear (the visa bill) is going to get through, everybody signs up so nobody can be in the position of being accused of being against high tech. There were, in fact, a whole lot of folks against it, but because they are tapping the high-tech community for campaign contributions, they don't want to admit that in public." Former Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), said, "This is not a popular bill with the public. It's popular with the CEOs...This is a very important issue for the high-tech executives who give the money." There have been plenty of capitol hill hearings at which the problems have been brought to the attention of all Congressmen and Senators. American STEM workers are too small a group to get action in the face of big money spending by employers.

How frustrating. In a fact based system, such specific information would drive changes and improvements. Why does an organization need 10,000 members to drive change when the facts are on their side? I'm grateful that in science and engineering (where I focus my energies) it only requires one voice of documented truth to make a difference.

Just to demonstrate that the "prevailing wage" on the LCA is a sham an opponent of the H-1B filled out the form you refer to (ETA 9035) and for the pay he put a wage BELOW the minimum wage. DOL approved the form. That is, as far as the DOL was concerned, he could have legally hired a "high skilled" college graduate below minimum wage.

John, Thanks for the detailed documentation (I do appreciate that Wikipedia is not a primary source). I agree that the legislation was the best that money could buy. Most people in technology can report accounts of massive layoffs that one way or another were replaced with cheaper foreign workers - sometimes working out of the same offices that their predecessors and trainers originally occupied in the USA. I wish there were an effective way to circle back to Congress, hold them accountable for the unintended consequences of the legislation (perhaps the light of day would enable employees as well as corporations an opportunity to present evidence), and implement corrective action. Unfortunately nobody wants such as Sisyphian task.

DrQuite, H-1B is, quite simply, the best legislation money can buy. Whoever, wrote the WIKIPEDIA text you quote is either seriously misinformed or is deliberately misleading.

There are a few things you are missing. First, while 8 USC 1182(n) clearly states that H-1B workers must be paid the prevailing wage, 8 USC 1182(p) redefines the H-1B prevailing wage. For universities, the H-1B wages are ridiculous. You can look up what employers can legally pay H-1B workers at FLCDATACETER.COM (not gov).

E.g. Computer Programmer in San Francisco: Ave. Wage $100,443. You can pay your H-1B programmer the Level 1 wage of $72,613. a 27% savings by going H-1B. If you are a university, you can pay $46,862.

Second, when the employer files the LCA, the DoL is requires to approve it with 7 days as long as the form is filled out correctly. An employer can put anything down on the LCA and know it will be approved. 8 USC 1182(n)(1)

The DoL is also prohibited from reviewing LCAs later and investigating based upon them. 8 USC 1182(n)(2)(G)(v). The entire LCA process is a papershuffling exercise.

The Dept. of Labor Office of Inspector General productes a semiannual report to Congress and it always describes the problems in LCA.

Third, the displacement of U.S. workers generally occurs through third parties. The first documented case was at AIG in 1994, when the company gathered 250 of its programmers to an offsite meeting and fired them. To collect severance, they had to train their foreign replacements

AIG can say it did not get H-1B visas. Syntel can say it did not fire Americans.

This process continues to this day because . . . .

The first H-1B expansion bill in 1998 (HR 3736, 104th Congress) contained a one paragraph provision to ban replacing Americans with H-1B workers when it left the House Judiciary Committee. Industry lobbyists screamed they would rather have no expansion ("over my dead body" as one lobbyist later turned community activist, later turned failed senate candiate cried) if they could not replace Americans.

The Repubican leadership in the House allowed industry lobbyists to rewrite the bill before it came to a vote. The offending provision was replaced by 20 pages of "labor protections" that were carefully crafted to protect no one. (You can compare the two versions at Congress.Gov.) That was what was voted on and passed.

The abuse in H-1B takes place before of affirmative action by lobbysts and the complacency of the American media and public.

While industry is organized, America's tech workers sit on their rumps.

A finite number of Stem job in the US. Means that for each h1-b imported into the US one American must lose their job. The psychopathic tech billionaires who created the h1b-program could of course care less.

Medicare pays 250,000 per Indian via CTS. Indian only gets paid 50,000, the company's executive, take in 100,000 divided among themselves. The Indians dont really do anything, they just stand there and talk among themselves. Seriously, they are using our tax money for their fraud. I was an employee in Caremore and I have witnessed this first hand.

@n65321 I agree that in practice the H-1B visa holders get lower wages and displace US workers but I don't understand how it is legal. According to Wikipedia (my emphasis added):

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is responsible for ensuring that foreign workers do not displace or adversely affect wages or working conditions of US workers. For every H-1B petition filed with the USCIS, there must be included a Labor Condition Application (LCA) (not to be confused with the labor certification), certified by the U.S. Department of Labor. The LCA is designed to ensure that the wage offered to the non-immigrant worker meets or exceeds the "prevailing wage" in the area of employment.

"The majority of the world's top 200 universities are in US. So why it is that US cannot produce the birghtest engineers from the local US citizens?"

Why is it difficult to convince an obvious racist that he has no evidence to support his case?

The US has the 9th highest IQs in the world. India ranks 88th. Who the heck is an Indian to ask this question to United Sates citizens, without any supporting evidence at all?

The US does produce some of the highest-scoring students in the world. It's just that--in the context of H-1B, it does not usually benefit these people to major in computer science when options such as law, HR, finance, and accounting are available.

Many of these people would make much better software engineers than lawyers and accountants. It's just--being a mediocre lawyer pays better, in the long run, than being an excellent software engineer. And, unfortunately, the fact the H-1B cap is too high might be the reason.

While the people on H-1B visas should stay, we probably should not raise the cap going forward. Even H-1Bs do not want their wages to fall--this is a point that both sides (US-based H-1B tech workers and US-based citizen tech workers) can agree on.